SCHENECTADY — The jury has been selected in the perjury case against the woman who was the foster mother of four-year-old Charlie Garay, who was murdered on Dec. 20, 2020 in Rotterdam.
Latrisha Greene’s husband, Dequan, was convicted of murdering Garay in 2022, and is now serving a maximum sentence of 25 years-to-life in prison. Latrisha Greene will now stand trial for lying about multiple points during Schenectady County Family Court testimony, concerning her own children, taken from her as a result of the Garay murder.
The trial of Latrisha Greene is set to begin Thursday morning. Jury selection began Tuesday, and by Wednesday afternoon 16 individuals, 10 men and six women, were selected to serve on the 12-person jury, along with four alternates. Judge Chad Brown said he estimates the trial will last two more weeks.
Latrisha Greene, 27, of Rotterdam, was arranged in December on seven counts — five counts of first-degree perjury, a felony, and two counts of endangering the welfare of a child, a misdemeanor. She pleaded not guilty to all charges.
The case is being prosecuted by Mike Nobles and Christina Tremante-Pelham from the Schenectady County District Attorney’s Office. Attorney Mark Juda is representing Latrisha Greene.
Nobles and Tremante-Pelham asked potential jurors if they had been foster parents or knew anyone who had, and what some of the reasons were why a person might become a foster parent. They also asked questions about punishing children, and if potential jurors thought it was acceptable to use corporal punishment on children, and if it was ok to leave marks on a child when doing so, or what they thought about if their spouse punished a child like that.
The prosecution also asked potential jurors if they would be able to make a conviction when the evidence proved beyond a reasonable doubt, even if the victims of the crime do not testify.
“What if there were two victims of a crime?,” Nobles asked. “What if one was dead [and] the other was a five-year-old child. Could you make a conviction without hearing from that child, and base a verdict on evidence without hearing from that child?”
Juda told potential jurors that he and his client had no obligation to prove anything.
“You can’t nap if you’re selected as a juror, but I could, I won’t, but I could,” Juda said.
Juda told the room that his client may or may not testify, and that as jurors they will not be able to hold it against Latrisha Greene if she does not testify, because she does not have to.
It is a reality that everyone has prejudices, Juda said. He asked potential jurors to all set aside their prejudices, and their emotions if they are selected to serve on this case. He said there will be emotional testimony in this case and if selected jurors will hear things that are difficult to hear.
On Tuesday, six jurors were selected in the case. The other 10 were chosen Wednesday.
Dequan Greene was convicted of second-degree murder, among other charges, in Garay’s death. Judge Matthew Sypniewski sentenced him in December, calling him “a sociopath.”
Family Court had removed Latrisha Greene’s biological children from her custody after finding that their safety would be in imminent risk of harm if they were not removed from her care, prosecutors said at the time.
The perjury indictment comes as a grand jury accused her of lying five times in proceedings held Aug. 31, 2022, prosecutors said previously.
She is accused of testifying falsely, denying sending a text message to her husband stating, “no more bruises we need them to heal.”
She is then accused of falsely denying she sent another text message to Dequan Greene that she had seen Dequan Greene’s handprint on the face of one of her biological children, prosecutors said.
The third, fourth and fifth perjury charges allege she falsely testified that, to her knowledge, her husband had never caused bruising to Garay or his five-year-old brother, also a foster child in the Greene’s care.
The child endangerment counts relate to accusations that she “engaged in a course of conduct likely to be injurious to the welfare of” Garay and his brother. The brothers were placed with Latrisha Greene on Sept. 25, 2020, and Garay was murdered less than three months later, on Dec. 20, 2020.
“The People’s theory of the case is that Greene and her husband both physically abused the boys and Greene used the COVID pandemic and other excuses to prevent foster care service providers from discovering the children’s physical injuries,” prosecutors said in a 2022 release. “Later, Greene intentionally attempted to mislead the Schenectady County Family Court judge about her knowledge of and participation in the abuse to regain custody of her own children and avoid responsibility for her conduct.”
Latrisha Greene earlier faced the child endangerment counts alone. Initially, she’d also faced an evidence tampering count, but that was later dismissed.
In the murder case against Dequan Greene, prosecutors proved to the jury at trial that Dequan Greene murdered Garay by stomping on his chest and then he attempted to cover it up by not calling 911. He eventually claimed to first responders that the child became unresponsive after falling out of a toddler chair.
Prosecutors argued in the initial case that Garay and his older brother, who was five at the time, were both subjected to months of abuse that began just weeks after the brothers were placed in the care of Dequan and Latrisha Greene by Albany Child Protective Services.
The Greenes were certified foster parents who cared for three children of their own.
The case was investigated by the Rotterdam Police Department, Schenectady County Child Protective Services, New York State Police Computer Forensic Laboratory and Schenectady County District Attorney’s Office Investigators.
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